Lancashire Police Officer database

This database provides a list of names of police officers, particularly those who served with the Lancashire County Constabulary from the force’s inception in 1840 up to 1925.

This was intended primarily as an index to the County Constabulary’s Examination Books, the principal personnel records of the force. These volumes contain information about policemen and women on admission to the force as well as details of their subsequent career. The dates given are the dates of joining the force, taken from the covering dates of the examination books.

The database is comprehensive for this series of records between 1840 and 1925. If you are unable to visit us to examine the original record in person, a photocopy of an entry in the Books can be supplied by post at a cost of £10. There is a closure period on the Examination Books which means that they are not open to public inspection in our Searchroom until 85 years after the last entry in them.

The database also includes names of officers who served in some Lancashire borough police forces: Rochdale, Southport, Preston and Wigan, among other towns and cities in the county, had their own police forces at various times. The index is not comprehensive for those forces, based as it is on surviving records available at Lancashire Record Office.

References are also given in the database to other series of personnel records that we hold. There are, for instance, numerical registers (PLA 12), photograph books (PLA 13), record sheets (PLA 54) and pension and other records (PLA 14). Obituaries in the Lancashire Constabulary Journal (LCJ) are also noted. We can undertake a comprehensive search of all the police records we have and supply copies for a cost of £20.

Because of the variety of information available and differing costs involved, depending on what information is available, you should email us first of all about the record you have identified. We will then inform you as to what we hold and what the cost will be to send copies to you. Closure periods on some classes of records may limit the information we can make available.

About Me

History, particularly Family History is my passion. I have worked in libraries & archives, I teach family history, conduct workshops and give genealogy presentations. It seemed a shame to have all this knowledge & experience and not share it with others, so this website was born.